Aker Solutions said yesterday it expected to sell its oilfield service arm – either as a whole or in chunks – within a year.
The energy service group also ditched its longer-term growth targets, saying it needed to focus on its profit and share price as the industry faces rising costs and weakening demand from its customers.
A spokesman for Aker Solutions said the divestment plan for its oilfield service business would have no impact on operations in the north-east, where the group has about 3,200 people working out of Aberdeen.
Last month, the company said it was selling its well-intervention division to Swedish private-equity firm EQT, in a deal worth more than £400million, to increase its focus on other markets.
The well-intervention arm includes the former Qserv business at Portlethen, near Aberdeen, which employs about 600 people.
Aker Solution’s decision to scrap growth targets highlights the challenges facing many oil service companies as they grapple with rising costs for labour and equipment.
“The focus on top-line growth will be toned down and more attention will be paid to growing our profit and share price,” Oeyvind Eriksen, the Norwegian group’s executive chairman, told investors yesterday.
He added: “We are going to reduce our investment levels so that we don’t over-invest in capacity that could erode margins.”
The firm – controlled by billionaire Kjell Inge Roekke – had targeted doubling revenue between 2010-15, and raising its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation margin to 15% by 2017. Mr Eriksen said: “We have the potential to grow in line with what we have guided before but that is not what we should be measured on.”
Aker Solutions employs about 28,000 people in more than 30 countries.